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TrekCore Review
 ARTICLE:
Shattered Universe Review
AUTHOR:
Virogen
DATE: June 13, 2004
RATING: 50 / 100
I really wanted to like the last new Star
Trek game we will see for a couple years, especially considering
how the game was cancelled and brought back to life by StarSphere. After that, I really thought it was saved for a
reason; that it would be a great game that would prove to
everyone that there was life in the Trek gaming franchise.
Unfortunately, this is not the case…
Shattered Universe starts its disappointing
journey with an intro movie that features plastic,
unrealistic, undetailed CGI versions of familiar characters
Sulu and Chekov. The story can be found in full here, but the
short version is that Sulu and the crew of the Excelsior get
transposed into the Mirror Universe and have to fight their
way back… Overall, I found the story to be rather bland;
there are only two characters in the game (Sulu and Chekov),
so you there is no richly developed Mirror Universe to get
lost in. There are rendered cut scenes throughout the game,
however the cut scenes are so visually dreadful that it might
have been better to not have them at all. Now this was likely
unavoidable because good rendered scenes cost money that Trek
games generally do not get, but these cut scenes really
prevented the game from establishing the feeling of being in
the Trek universe.
 In-game
the graphics fare much better. The starship models are quite
well done and have a good amount of detail. By far the best
part of Shattered Universe is blasting the hull of the capital
ships as you fly within metres of the hull. The sense of
scale is great in the game; flying along a capital ship really
makes you feel like you’re taking on a massive ship. There
are also great effects for battle damage as you destroy the
ships. I wish the damage would reflect where you hit the ship
like in Bridge Commander, but it’s scripted so that no matter
what part of the ship you hit, certain sections show damage in
a certain order.
 Control-wise I found the ships to handle
very easily and very intuitively. The only difference is that
you cannot select different weapon systems on a ship. You
launch with at most three different weapon types; these
weapons are always pre-determined depending on the ship you
choose. Thus the controls are simpler than Invasion’s were.
However, I preferred Invasion’s controls because the freedom
to switch between weapons during a mission added another
dimension to the game. Another feature from Invasion missing
in Shattered Universe is the double-tap warp. I found it to
be very useful because you could quickly get away and set
yourself up for another run at a starship. In Shattered
Universe, it takes more time to “run away”, so I usually ended
up forwarding and reversing while shooting, which seems
unrealistic to me.
 One of the biggest problems in the game is
tedious, repetitive gameplay, usually accompanied by terrible
level design. Basically, the game is all about shooting at
wave after wave of fighters, and then capital ships. Repeat
for 20 missions and you have Shattered Universe. Invasion at
least tried to vary it more by having missions like flying
inside a Borg Cube. Not in Shattered Universe. All you get
are different backgrounds for fighting… Oh, and if you want a
break from shooting at ships, there are a couple levels where
you fly around and destroy asteroids to collect minerals.
Aside from this ridiculously lame level concept, the
developers felt that having you be attacked by squadrons (for
no reason) in between destroying different asteroids would
make the levels entertaining. In one of these asteroid
levels, you destroy asteroids and squadrons for 15 minutes
(BTW, it’s no challenge to this) and then the last 5 minutes
of the level is an insanely hard fight against Klingons and
Orions. You die and you have to REPEAT the tedious 15 minutes
of the mission to get another shot at the challenging part
because there is no save option. I guess you have to lengthen
the game somehow…
 Not to say the battles are not fun. They
are quite intense and fast paced; it’s just that you feel that
you’re doing the same thing over and over except against
different ships… Then they throw very difficult missions at
you that make you waste hours of repeating the level. I say
it’s a waste because it seems like luck when you actually
manage to beat them, and not because of increased skill…
Sound wise Shattered Universe
is a mix of
terrible sound effects to great sound effects. For example,
there’s a horrible low quality typewriter noise whenever your
objectives change. There’s also an incredibly annoying
warning klaxon that goes off whenever you are too near a
planet; and while this klaxon blares out your speakers, you
have to endure Sulu’s 500th warning that you have entered a
gravity well and that you should proceed with caution.
Developers: ONLY have this voice over the first couple times
you enter the gravity well, but not EVERY SINGLE TIME for the
entire game! And have the klaxon go off after a couple
times. I mean, there is a visual indicator for it, why
continue to annoy the player? Otherwise the game’s sound is
great. Weapons fire sounds like it has punch and the
explosions (especially of the capital ships) are very
satisfying to hear.
 The last of my annoyances with the game
have to do with the cool sounding capital ship explosions.
Whenever a capital ship explodes, the camera cuts to a far off
view of the ship as it explodes. While this looks and sounds
very cinematic, gameplay is not paused during it. That is,
the enemy continues to pummel you and the Excelsior for the 7
seconds or so that it takes you watch the capital ship
explode. This is unbelievably annoying as there are times
when you fail the mission as a result of what happens in those
7 seconds when you have no control over what is going on. I
liked watching the explosions, but the developers should have
given the option to skip them or turn them off.
 One of the best qualities of Shattered
Universe is revisiting old enemies and situations from the TOS
and movies eras. For example, you face the doomsday machine,
the amoeba from The Immunity Syndrome, and the M5 computer
from The Ultimate Computer. There is also a wormhole level
which recreates the wormhole effect from The Motion Picture.
This level was particularly interesting because your ship is
tossed around a bit in the wormhole while you fight. The best
part of the game is definitely having George Takei and Walter
Koenig voice their characters, even if the dialog is mundane.
Shattered Universe is at best mediocre.
The negatives really overpower the positives and you would be
best to spend your money on more engaging and entertaining
titles. SU really offers nothing new in terms of gameplay or
graphics or anything. Period. The only reason to buy it is
to hear two Trek veterans reprise their roles and to play some
scenarios previously seen in classic Trek. It’s a renter as
there is no replay value and you could easily finish it in a
couple days using the cheat codes…
Rating: 50 out of 100
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